10. New Jersey - Bon Jovi
Because this was my first concert, it still holds special meaning to me. It was also the first CD I ever owned...weird, huh?

9. Thriller - Michael Jackson
C'mon. You know you wore your record player's needle out on Triller, too. While the man may be a freak of nature today, he was king in the early 80's.

8. musicforthemorningafter - Pete Yorn
I was hesitant in putting this one on here because it's still fairly new. Only time will tell if it remains on my list, but I think this album has influenced my music, and is probably responsible for getting me writing again.

7. Revolver - The Beatles
While I had always enjoyed what Fab Four I had heard, this was my official doorway to the world of the Beatles. After I listened to this album, I bought them all. While there are specific songs on other albums that are higher on my favorites list, this is still the best album as a whole, in my humble opinion.

6. The Colour and the Shape - Foo Fighters
5{roclaimed loudly and proudly, "rock is not dead." It restored my faith in all that is good and loud, and put a bullet between the eyes of grunge (ironically fired by one of the guys who started the Seattle-based revolution in the first place).

5. Weird Al Yankovic in 3D - Weird Al Yankovic
If there is a record that helped shape who I am today, this would be it. My sense of humor, especially in my music, can be directly attributed to this album. Is this a good thing? That's for you to decide.

4. Girls, Girls, Girls - Motley Crue
Ah, yes. To this day I don't know what prompted me to buy this. Our parents were buying us any tape we wanted to listen to (in our Walkmans) for our vacation, and I picked up this one. It was a world away from what I had been listening to, and so began my journey down that long, dark path we call "heavy metal."

3. Kenny Rogers Greatest Hits - Kenny Rogers
This was the first album that I remember owning that was actually mine. Not only do I still know every song on this record by heart, but it later made a cameo in our home movie, "Guy the Paranoid Spy". (Note: The first record I actually ever bought was only a single, "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", so I disqualified it from this list. If memory serves me, three of my first four records were singles. The other two being "Jessie's Girl" and "Eat It", which I still have.)

2. Cherry Pie - Warrant
Laugh if you want, but to me this was the soundtrack of high school. Sure, there were lots of other hair band tunes, as well as the onset of grunge, but this was the definition of cool.

1. Mighty Joe Moon - Grant Lee Buffalo
Because of this album, I stopped writing songs for nearly eight years. It redefined what I though was "good," and made me realize that my songs were actually "crap." The funny thing is that this wasn't the album I was looking for when I bought it. I had heard their track "Fuzzy" on the radio, after it was featured on the "With Honors" soundtrack, and when I went to find it, this was the only album the store had...so I gave it a shot. Good call.